Introducing the Trade-House Idea (Offline Trading)

I see what you're saying Silver, about only using currency items within the trade-house. However, what mass system would be in place to orchestrate trading between the players (other than the trade channel, which I don't think is really a good option to look at doing all trading through, just random, local trading). Without some other mass item-to-item (non-currency items) trading system, you only will ever get to have a chance to trade with the players that are online with you on the same server as you. In D2, people were constantly joining and dropping games to try and find people to trade with for particular items. I just see that as a need to implement a system that would deal with those issues so you don't run into the same dilemma.

A trade-house would have its own UI. So, you click an NPC (auctioneer or whatever) and a trade window would pop up for the player.

So, they’ll be doing most of their trades using that UI. They’ll be able to place an item in the trade-house, select 5 or so currency–items that they want the item to be traded for, and then they can select the values of the trade items, for bidding and buyout prices.

The biggest issue I can see with the in-game forum-trade set up is that, you’ll post an item to trade. Then wait like, 12 hours (or more) for other players to post their bids. With enough players, you’re looking at like 5-10 pages of bids you’ll need to wade through.

Then you’ll have to decide which the best bid is. So, the biggest issue there is that it gets a little convoluted. Imagine wading through 50 pages of bids! It would take a long time to weigh the net worth of each item and bid to you.

So, that’s why the trade-house would work well. Each bid a player makes could only be better than the last.

I think an auction house would REALLY be beneficial. Just take a look at other MMOs. The only one i played, which does not have an auction house was Guild Wars. And trade in Guild Wars really was a pain in the ass. Standing around for hours spamming offers was one way. The other way was to meet up after setting a date in the trade forum. Which was annoying too. I cannot count how many times i wasted time waiting for someone i dated in the forum who never showed up. Or who tried to change conditions of the deal after meeting contrary to the already set conditions. That was VERY annoying. So please, implement an auction house!

Kungfooe is right. Any trade system that doesn't allow item-item trading completely misses the point of an item-based economy.

This is how I envision a trade house:

Players can add an item listing to the trade house. The trade house automatically detects the item's properties and files it in a searchable database. Users could filter results to find the item they are looking for, eg. "sword" "rare" "requires > 100 strength" "> 1 sockets" would show all rare swords that require 100 or more strength and have more than one socket.

When a player adds an item, they must choose from three options when it is added:

a) Trade for X
The advertiser chooses a specific currency item(s) that they want in exchange for their item. The trade is made automatically as soon as someone offers the specified item.
This would be good for everyday exchanges of one type of currency item for another.

b) Barter
The advertiser can put some loose restrictions on offers that can be made, such as "rare swords". Then buyers can place any offer that meets the criteria, the trade house does not allow non-conforming offers. The advertiser can then accept or reject any offer he/she chooses. A history of offers made is kept until the item is removed from the trade house.
This method would be good for items with random properties, and high end items where values are uncertain.

c) Auction
The advertiser selects one or more types of currency item they are willing to accept, and their relative worth.
For example the advertiser could select "Scroll of Wisdom", "Whetstone", and "Jeweler’s Orb" and then set the relative value to "1 Jeweler’s Orb = 5 Whetstone = 15 Scroll of Wisdom", or whatever other ratio they like.
Buyers then place bids only using those item types, and the trade house automatically calulates the winning bid.
This method would be good for sellers looking to maximise their return on sought-after items, and buyers looking for a bargain.

I think that would pretty much cover all bases.

hmm i dont like the idea because a trade-house doesn´t fit for me with a arpg.. its more for an WoW game.. and the option -linking items to the forum- is a really cool function;) but this theme is a discussion worth

I think linking items to the forum is a good enough trading system.

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tpapp157 wrote:

Kungfooe is right. Any trade system that doesn't allow item-item trading completely misses the point of an item-based economy.

This thread is not about removing player-to-player item trading. It's about adding in a trade-house alongside player-to-payer trades. So, this complaint simply does not apply.

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p0rt wrote:

I think linking items to the forum is a good enough trading system.

Well, that depends on how the forums work. But I can easily imagine such a forum trade system being very much time-consuming.

Lets say I put item X up for sale. Then I wait 24 hours before seeing what people have offered me.

Lets say that item X is very popular, all of a sudden I have to look through 20 pages of offers, then try to decide which is the best offer. For one single item, that happens to be popular, this is a lot of time deciding the best offer.

A trade-house would be very clear-cut. Each offer would have to be matched by bidding players. There is no need to read 20 pages worth of offers, and then hope that the person still wants to trade you for the item in game.

It seems to me that currency items are intended to round out or sweeten item deals. Not replace them. Trying to force people to trade as if gold was still a part of the economy, again, misses the point. Not to mention it's incredibly limited.

I would suggest we try to think of a way to streamline all item trading (including currency items) and not artificially limit players like many of these suggestions do. That's the reason the devs dropped gold in the first place and now you're trying to bring it back under a different name.

Forum trading is enough. There's no end for simplicity. What about writing a macro/bot for killing demons when you don't have time to play?

What about no death penalties? What about static loot instead of randomized to ensure players get nice items? What about giving ratings to all items to ensure trading will be fair?

There's no end for these kind of things.

I rarely visit suggestions forums in the last few weeks. Because I know what I would see there.

Edit: No offense to anyone. Just my 2 cents.